Home Away From Home

Careful Planning Created This Contemporary Beach House

August 06, 1989|By MARK ST. JOHN ERICKSON Staff Writer

VIRGINIA BEACH — Gus and Deanne Miller wake up most summer mornings to the sight of heavily laden cargo ships steaming across the horizon. Closer in, the first sunbathers of the day set their chairs in the sand. Pelicans and porpoises bob in the water.

It's a tranquil, relaxing scene that appears again as the couple mounts the stairs to the kitchen and sits down at the breakfast table. Even standing at the sink, rinsing the dishes before leaving for work, Deanne looks past the dunes at the play of sunlight on the water.

"The kitchen is great," she says, explaining how she and her husband planned their new, three-story beach house. "Imagine it. You can actually stand at the sink and look at the ocean.

"That's one thing our architect insisted on. It makes all the difference in the world when you think you could have been facing a wall."

The Millers began looking for a place at the north end of the beach nearly two years ago. Gus, the president of a Tidewater oil company, and Deanne, who also works at the company, spend most of the year at their traditional two-story Georgian home in Norfolk. But they wanted something to replace the summer house they'd decided to sell because of the crumbling coastline at Sandbridge.

"It was right on the ocean," Gus says, "and, obviously, with the storms of the past few years, there were some erosion problems. You tend to get concerned, especially in the winter, when you have the waves lapping at your doorstep.

"We had to sell it. But Deanne and I love the beach so much, we knew we'd miss it right away. We started looking for a new place late that summer."

That meant doing what most people do when they're hunting for real estate: lots of leafing through the classified ads in the Sunday paper and lots of driving and looking around. Then they'd copy down the names and phone numbers on the signs in front of the interesting houses.

The couple soon decided, however, to design and build a completely new structure rather than work with an existing home. Gus, in particular, was eager to take on the challenge of a custom-building project. "None of the houses we looked at really suited our lifestyle," Deanne says. "It would have been too much work to make any of them our own."

Finding a good piece of property was unexpectedly easy. The Millers were lucky. They located a relatively large lot on the North End just before it went on the market. At 50-by-150-feet, the property may have been a little big for the house they wanted. But a reassuring barrier of grass-covered dunes stood between the proposed building site and the surf at the edge of the ocean.

Finding an architect proved more difficult. The Millers spoke to several candidates without any success. Then, on one of their Sunday drives through the area, they came across a newly started house just two blocks down from their lot. Like a lot of curious househunters, they decided to step inside for an impromptu tour.

"I loved the house, and when I saw Bob's name on the sign out front, I called him," Deanne says. "It turned out to be the best thing I could have done. The minute I met him, I said, `This is the man who's going to build my house.'"

Williamsburg resident Robert A. Magoon Jr., now with the Richmond architectural firm VMDO, felt as comfortable with the Millers as they felt with him. One of his first acts was to spend the day with the couple at their Norfolk and Sandbridge homes. The visit uncovered a long list of likes and dislikes regarding both of the houses.

It also gave the architect a chance to watch and listen as the couple interacted with each other, their family and friends. "It's an interesting, very intimate process," he says. "To do your job well, you need to know more about someone than most other people will ever know."

The Millers, in turn, began assembling a horde of magazine pictures that illustrated some of the things they hoped to incorporate in the new structure. Decks, windows and skylights were particularly important. They wanted continuous eye contact with the sky and the beach.

They also decided on a way to span the difference between their large lot and the relatively small dwelling they imagined. "You can't afford to waste that kind of space. It's just too expensive," Gus says. "We chose to build a duplex and then have both of the spaces blend together. That way we'd have the best of both worlds."

The resulting three-story building encompasses nearly 7,000 square feet. The Miller's share, spread out over all three levels, is still very ample. With four bedrooms, a den, a recreation room and an oceanfront great room incorporating living, dining and kitchen areas, it's like a contemporary version of an old-fashioned family beach house. "We built it big because our children and grandchildren are here all the time," Deanne says. "Usually, when we sit down to dinner, there are 12 or 14 of us here. That's a lot of people."